ODROID-C5 is a single board computer (SBC) introduced by Hardkernel, a manufacturing company based in South Korea. It features a system-on-a-chip (SoC) with integrated CPU & GPU, multiple USB ports, HDMI with support for 4K HDR video, a micro SD card socket, 40 GPIO pins, and much more.
The board is powered by the Amlogic S905X5M application processor. An application processor (AP) is a type of microprocessor designed specifically to handle high-level operating systems. The processor features a quad-core Cortex-A55 CPU (2.5GHz) along with an ARM G310 V2 GPU(0.85 GHz) and 4GB of DDR4 memory.
This new SBC beats its predecessor, the ODROID-C4, in almost all aspects. It’s faster, comes with improved RAM, memory bandwidth, and more than double the GPU 3D rendering performance. File system access speeds are more than 50% faster, facilitated by the HS400 eMMC socket.
The company has given a graphical representation of the performance differences between ODROID-C4 and ODROID-C5, shown in the diagram below:
Power consumption has decreased from 3113 milliwatts to 2245 milliwatts (while running “stress-ng –cpu 4 –cpu-method matrixprod”). So, around a 27.8% reduction in power is observed in the new board along with a significant performance increase. The company claims the board requires less than 2.5 Watts of power even at full load. The board can be powered using a DC barrel jack connector with a recommended rating of 12V/2A.
Thanks to the low power consumption, the CPU runs without a heatsink. Hardkernel put the ODROID-C5 board under a stress test for over two hours, during which the CPU was clocked at 2.508 GHz. The CPU showed no thermal throttling issues, and the temperature hardly crossed 70 °C throughout the test.
Features:
- SoC
- Processor
- Amlogic S905X5M
- Quad-core ARM Cortex-A55, up to 2.5GHz
- Graphics (GPU)
- ARM Mali-G310 V2, clocked at 0.85GHz
- Processor
- Memory: 4GB DDR4 RAM (32-bit bus) with a data rate of 3200 MT/s
- Storage
- micro SD slot (DS/HS mode up to UHS-I SDR104)
- eMMC socket supporting HS400 mode
- Video Output: HDMI 2.0 port supporting up to 4K @ 60Hz, with HDR, EDID, and CEC capabilities
- Audio Output: HDMI and analog stereo line-out
- Networking: Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45) with 10/100/1000 Mbps support
- External Ports
- 4 × USB 2.0 host ports
- 1 × Micro USB OTG
- 1 × UART debug port
- GPIO
- 1 × 40-pin GPIO header
- Nominal voltage: 3.1V
- Max input voltage: 3.4V
- Input Voltage: Accepts 7.5V to 15.5V DC (12V/2A adapter recommended)
- Power Usage
- Idle: approx. 1W (no peripherals)
- Load: approx. 2.5W
- Off: approx. 0.22W
- Dimensions: Off: approx. 0.22W
- Weight: 42 grams
Users can flash an operating system on either the onboard eMMC or to an external micro SD card. Supported OS images are:
- Android 14
- Ubuntu 22.04 Server
- Ubuntu 22.04 Gnome Desktop
Hardkernel has instructions for flashing the OS on their wiki page.
The board also has some drawbacks, such as the lack of USB 3.0 ports, USB Type-C ports, and a PCIe bus. An external USB dongle should be used for Wi-Fi as the board has no built-in Wi-Fi interface.
Hardkernel also supplies expansion boards for ODROID-C5, such as an LCD shield, relay board, USB GPS receiver, and more. Individual ODROID-C5 boards are up for sale on the Hardkernel website for $39, and there is up to a 5% discount on higher order quantities.
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